Christmas and New Year's have passed, and now India, here we come! Christmas was very different and definitely a memorable one being my first hot Aussie Christmas away from my family! I was sad at first because I wasn't with my family (especially missing grandpa) but I decided to make the most out of it...and it ended up being a blast! A group of us headed down to Sunshine Coast to soak up the sun and have a barbecue on the beach. It was so much fun being with my second family, and who could argue with the beach? A few days after Christmas, the whole team headed down to Fingal Heads (an aboriginal beach just south of the Gold Coast). We spent the last 2 weeks there ministering to the community and getting to know the people. New Year's Eve was interesting and really cool...we went to the border of New South Wales and Queensland (the times there are 1 hour apart)..so we saw the fireworks in Queensland first and then took a picture at the border (one foot in 2006, the other one in 2007) and we watched the New South Wales fireworks about an hour later. VERY FUN! Well, now the Pacific team has left, and they are in Samoa for a few weeks before they leave to go to Tahiti. My team (India Team) has been split up a little bit...a few of the people are now doing a local outreach and will be travelling around Australia instead. So now our team has 5 students led by 2 staff members. I think it will be really cool travelling in a smaller group and I'm excited to see what God has in store and how He's going to use us. I will most likely be coming home from Australia about a month later than I thought..I love it so much here; I don't want to leave! My friend Brittany is planning on staying here too, so we can travel around a bit together. Well that's all for now. I'm not sure if I'll be able to update while in India (we'll be there for 7 weeks) but i'll be sure to keep a journal of the things that happen!

3 month mark

Today marks 3 months since I left Greenville to come here! I can't believe it's been that long..I feel like I'm in such a different life now, though. 1/2 way done! Lecture phase is finally over..we had our last lecture on Friday! I am so excited about local outreach and outreach to India. We did find out a little more of what we will be doing in India; they told us we'll be working with a lot of street children and orphans as well as old folks and people with leprosy. We bought our plane tickets the other day, and we'll be leaving on January 10, 2007. Prayer needs: people who haven't gotten all of their money in yet for outreach, unity in our team, safety
I'm reading Crime and Punishment right now and loving it. I miss home a lot. It took me 30 minutes to get on this page just to post the blog! The past 2 weeks of lectures were on Spiritual Warfare and Evangelism...we did a lot of evangelism in the city this week and I met so many new people! I guess I've been disillusioned with the typical form of evangelism...you know, the pastor yelling at passersby on the street, telling them they're going to Hell. I think the most effective way of evangelism is just to get to know people and love them like Jesus loves. "I don't set out to do great things, but small things with a great deal of love" -Mother Theresa.
These are my thoughts for the week. I don't know when I'll be able to get on here again since this blog takes so long! Merry Christmas to everyone...wish I could be home with the family, but I'm making the most of it...not many people I know have gotten to be on a beautiful Australian beach for Christmas! Miss you all....

This was taken, as I mentioned earlier, at Byron Bay...closest to home for awhile!

thoughts

The past week has been good. We learned about relationships and boundaries within them. A key thing I learned is that attitude is a choice and that I do have control over my attitude. I've noticed that so many days I wake up and no one even says or does anything to me and I am just in a bad mood for no reason! It's cool to see the results of just forcing yourself to smile and telling yourself that it will be a good day...it's crazy how well it works. I'm really glad I figured this out sooner than later. Saturday our team went to Coochiemudlow Island (about 20 minutes away) and I had the best time because I got to go off and be by myself! I guess I hadn't really realized how much I miss having my own space and just being able to be alone. It was also cool just being able to spend time with God without having an agenda or any distractions.

I've really been learning to trust God with my future too because I've been really worried about college decisions and just choices in general. I want to be wise and seek God to show me what to do...I know if I don't do that, hypothetically I could still have a good life…great memories and great times, but I want more. I want this life to be lived absolutely to the fullest...and I don't want to settle for anything less. I see that so many people waste their lives by not even considering a greater purpose and not even caring about their Creator. If He created me, and I believe He did, then He must know the essence of me, and He must understand more than I do…so I reckon it’s high time for me to seek Him for what His perfect will is for me! I’m also finding that it’s a lot easier to say I trust God than to actually live it out. One more thing, honesty with God is healthy and vital to a good relationship with God. I used to just pray such cliché prayers but they really had no depth or meaning…so I guess I’ve been learning to treat God like a real person and talk to Him like I would talk to anyone else. Purpose Driven Life has had such an impact on my thinking. So that’s my personal spiritual stuff I’ve been facing.

Well, there are 2 more regular weeks of lectures and then we leave for local outreach which will be for 3 weeks. We leave for India on January 8! I'm looking forward to my 1st hot Christmas with my new YWAM family! BUT I will definitely miss picking names with the sisters and being with my family..and of course waking up to find Jennie has already gone through all the stockings and chosen what she wants...haha, just kidding. It's also sad that I don't get to see my Grandpa. One of the best parts of Christmas at home is Grandpa's famous scrambled eggs! Well, I better get to work duties now!

The past few weeks have been really good! So much has happened...well let's see, last week our group went on our first outreach trip to Byron Bay which is pretty much a really cool little laid back hippie town. Our main focus was the teenagers who were there for Schoolies which is pretty much a large scale version of spring break...there's tons of drinking smoking and sex and lots of people get in fights or get raped so it's really pretty dangerous...but we were there just to hang out with the kids and kind of get them away from the pubs etc. and it was such a cool experince getting to meet all the kids and give them free food and just show them God's love without forcing our beliefs on them but also letting them know the gospel. It was awesome and our team bonded so much this week. I really feel like they are my family now. Praise report: I lost my camera the other night and was so upset over it and so I kept on praying pretty much the God would work a miracle and also give me a good attitude about it and that I wouldn't place too much value on it because it's only a camera, well the next night a girl that I had prayed for the night before came up to me and brought my camera back to me! She said she had accidentally picked it up...who knows for sure if she stole it or not but God definitely had a purpose for me losing it. It was awesome! Well more news..team Asia found out that we will be going only to India now..not China anymore. I'm fully okay with that...a bit disappointed though, but I do intend to go to China sometime in the future. We have 3 weeks of lectures left and then local outreach for about 1 month...then I'm off to India. I'm really excited about what we will do in India, especially working with the street children and child sex slaves. It's such a sad and hopeless life those kids live and it's so cool that we get to bring them so much hope because of what Jesus did. God is good and I'm looking forward to the next few months. I miss everyone..especially since it's the holiday season. I really love the warm weather though. Thanksgiving day was fun...I went to the beach and it was about 90F! Since it's an American holiday, we didn't celebrate it but I did see a wild turkey on the beach! That's about as close as I got to eating turkey! In Byron, we visited the lighthouse and tooks lots of photos (mom would love it) and about a 5 minute walk from the lighthouse, we went to the most easterly point on the map of Australia, so I was the closest to home that I'll be in a very long time! It was beautiful and hopefully I'll get some pics on here soon.

news

this week has been cool! we have had many water balloon fights and pranks...my small group is so fun, we meet 2x a week and we made up a name for ourselves.."SCAMM" each letter stands for each person's name in the group. it's cool because we made these t-shirts and we do pranks on the other small groups. Tuesday we got one group with tons of water balloons! today we made cookies and discussed lectures...it's really fun. i love this school...I feel like i'm learning so much and also having fun at the same time, making such awesome friends and memories.
(so in this picture...Sieni, Chris, Me, Moa, Matt and our newest member, Diana!)

This week has FLOWN by! It's been really good. I am entering into week 7 here at YWAM island breeze! So a little update...well I joined the Asia team and was really looking forward to going to India and China for a few months, but then the other day one of my leaders, Simon, met with me and another girl (Brittanie) and he told us that he had a dream that both of us were being called to the pacific islands. Well this was really confusing to both of us and so we have been praying about it a lot and we both just are really confused now! So continue to keep us in your prayers! Anyhow, we have had this activity this whole week callled "angels and mortals" and your secret angel pretty much just gives you different things to encourage you throughout the week. My angel gave me candy!! wahoo!! and a couple verses. It's been fun trying to guess who has who. Lectures this week were about the Holy Spirit and having a clear conscience. We did this whole time of confession both outward with everyone there and just alone. It was really good to see what God has done with people who have such a bad past and the transformation that comes with salvation. Well I got a BEAUTIFUL picture of Leah in her soon to be wedding gown! Hmm..last week we went into the city (about 7 of us total) and I bought tons of souvenirs for people! If you have any requests of what you'd like me to bring back let me know! :0) but keep in mind that I am a little short on $! So YWAM is so awesome and I really miss home a lot but I am so glad I'm here. I don't feel like I'm this awesome spiritual leader now that I'm here, but I really am growing a lot. I guess I had the wrong idea about what it would be like...I assumed that I would be pretty much a pastor's wife by the time I got back..but I'm still the same old Alice...just growing a lot too! this is a picture of me with brittanie

outreach location

hey! Not much time to write, just thought I'd let everyone know that we have decided on two different outreach locations. Please pray for me as I seek God on this decision! One location is Asia (India and China specifically) and the other is the Pacific Islands (Samoa and Taihiti via New Zealand). If anyone has any advice or wants to tell me where you think God is calling me feel free to let me know! LOVE you all! will write more later!